Read India Right

Proud Gujarati, Ad- man, Avid reader, Aspiring author, Rudimentary poet, and Politically leaning towards 'economic-right'. Arpit considers himself to be a student of India and politics. He is known for his eccentricity, bad jokes and of course Gujarati stomach.

Note: Many articles have been written countering Aakar Patel’s obsessive compulsive disorder driven articles on Modi, but this one talks about something else, something that is fundamentally wrong with this man. I choose to write on it since it hurts to see him cut and segregate Gujarati community on the caste lines.

Flashback: Gujarat 2012

Justice Arnab with his famous 1200 decibel volume was holding a panel on Times Now. The panel was being liberal with words… ‘Mela’ (meaning a village fair) would be the most appropriate word to describe what the discussion actually was, but that is inconsequential for our story. Among the myriad of panellists, two ‘geniuses’ were: Aakar Patel and Yogendra Yadav.

“All Gujaratis are communal” Aakar Uvacha (meaning said)

After a mumbling rebuttal from Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson,

“Patels will spoil the broth this time” Yogendra Yadav voiced.

Aakar jumps in and explains how “Patels idolise Sardar Patel who was a ‘decisive’ leader thus they will vote for Modi.”

As the show goes on, both of them dissect Gujaratis based on caste and community lines. This helped Guajaratis discover the caste-wise traits they were carrying since 12th century.

I learnt that I vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because in the late 1980s, when I was born, congress had KHAM(Kshatriya Harijan Adivasi Muslim) caste dynamics and I got disgusted with it. Thanks to Aakar.

June 2013.

I came across news piece of Edhi’s bad health. It is distressing, since he’s the only little hope for humanity in Pakistan. That got me curious about Gujaratis in Pakistan (see, Aakar is right…we Gujaratis are so parochial…we count them as one of us, even if they are on the other side.) And I went on the internet treasure hunting information about Gujaratis in Pakistan, especially in Karachi, since my family had ties with the city since 1800s.

Then, I came across one of the two ‘perspicacious ‘articles by none other than THE Aakar Patel.

What in the regional Gujarati god’s name was he doing there?

He wrote about how Pakistan needs more Gujaratis. Yes, those communal Gujaratis whom he had abused.

“Indian society functions as a whole. Observed in part, it is dysfunctional. Without Gujaratis and Pakistanis, India wouldn’t have an economy. Delete Tata/Birla/Ambanis/Ruias and India begins to look like Bangladesh”

Mogambo bhai khush hua.

Now, here are the gems:

“Gujaratis try to hold up the Pakistani economy. But the peasant Punjabi runs over his effort with his militant stupidity. Why cannot a Punjabi Pakistani think like a trader? Because, he’s not converted from mercantile caste.”

He goes on to describe how not all Gujaratis, but a few castes are carrying on Pakistan’s economy while counting names from each communities. He is wrong on so many counts; I’ll have to make a career out of correcting his each assertion since the beginning of his career.

This obsession with castes is wreaking havoc since independence and we still don’t learn. It has seeped in so deep, that even while praising Gujaratis, he cannot leave caste aside.

This is how he segregates Gujaratis: Hindus (peasant/trader/martial), Muslims (converted from peasant/trader/martial castes), Christians (converted from peasant/trader/martial castes) Parsis (those who came from Iran & stayed here. But according to him, that doesn’t suffice to pronounce them as Gujarati.)

Makes sense to you? No? You communal fascist!

The thing with Aakar is that he loves to attribute one’s virtues to his community & ancestors rather than to the individual. And in that too, he has been charitably generic. He counts his own caste Patels as peasants, but forgets that 30% motels of the United States of America are run by these peasant Patels.

In a drive to discredit Modi, he made a startling observation: Gujarati Muslims are better off than ones in the rest of the country, is because they’re converted from the mercantile class. Does that mean Muslims of the rest of India would be living wretched life even if they were Hindus because the caste makes them so?

Another observation says, “Why is Pakistan such a mess? Some would blame Islam, but the problem is not the religion at all. The problem is a lack of the caste balance. There are too many peasants and not too many traders”

Voila!

Trin Trin! “Hello, White house? I’ve got a solution for Pakistan, which the world has failed to get. Pump in Gujaratis in Pakistan!”

The thing with Pakistan is that whatever you write about its community and culture that also applies to India. His assertion of Gujaratis running the economy is right, but the idea that it is because so and so the caste or pre-conversion case is regressively and plainly stupid.

Whatever caste dynamics or the picture he may paint, North India comes out as a loser. Is it fair to demonise entire north India because they’re not mercantile?

And is it fair to paint all of North India’s Muslims as jahil, aggressive and with wrong priorities because their ancestors were converted from non-mercantile castes?

These regressive moronic ideas are precisely what Gujarat and India can do without.

Aakar patel is clown of online/print media, I LOVE COMMENT SECTION OF his post….

Anyways for your kind of information , this weekend @firstpost he wrote some thing like MODI doesn’t believe in “INCLUSIVE SECULARISM”..I mean he too is getting innovative, I was in tizzy when I read it……

They are treat to read, innovative & absolute fun

Skanda

Dear Arpit,

While blasting Aakar is fine ignoring the potent factor of caste is not completely logical.

It is oversimplification to say caste obsession wrecked havoc. Refer S Gurumurthy’s analysis on this. While there has been a thorough perversion of the way Indians look at caste, we need to understand that the roots of such perversion lie nowhere else but in colonial past and proxy-colonial present.

Even in the days of Nehru’s socialist flirting it happens to be the jAti level social capital that kept entrepreneurship thriving in India. While serious caste problems do exist, we need to take a balanced view of the institution rather than trying to damn it with a one-sided view.

Chor

Hardly the point made by Arpit. He was referring to Aakar Patel’s repeated digging up of castes of people he has chosen to target for the day. The only thing consistent about Aakar Patel is the absolute confusion and omnishambles that is his stance on people in general. He is just a mischief maker, and deserves to be treated with the amount of respect you would allow such a person.

Arpitmraval

You said it

Arpitmraval

Second every word. But I wasn’t preaching, only pointing how ridiculous the cast obsession is getting. Imagine entire elections fought on this! I mean even while discussing a great man like Edhi, he HAS to mention his caste and attribute his greatness to it. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

http://desicontrarian.wordpress.com/ Contrarian

Among The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, he is the Bad plus The Ugly.
An annotated analysis here.

yashwant

Wonderful piece Arpit.He treats Sardar Patel as a divisive figure.We should not at all feel surprised.His knowledge of Indian political figures is limited to what his much venerated Nehruvian gurus have taught him .Coming to the muslim question ,Aakar Patel’s caste justification to muslim backwardness is plainly absurd.
Muslims are backward because of the excluvinist tendencies of islam.wonder what would be the condition of arab islamic aristocracies if there was no oil?

Arpitmraval

Thanks And yes his ideas are absurd at best, yet what i find instigating is that his methodology to view problem is based on something that happened a 1000 years ago. I mean, 1000 years ago, jews were slaves, now they’re a warrior tribes. His logic doesn’t hold for a microsecond!

hujodaddy

bravo for dissecting this moron bekaar ..keep it up

Hrishikesh Date

Aakar Patel is a ripe example to showcase how some people can do anything for money and fame. His articles are chauvinist, communal and down right racist.